Belts & Braces.
Two words in the title tied together by an ampersand. Two words are always better than one. One no doubt better than none. But three or more? That's when you get close to renting a crowd, I guess. Belt, braces, buttons & buckles. Brooches and badges then added, closely followed by bonnets and boots. The list is literally endless, as I have not even mentioned balaclavas and bodices. All to tighten or cover parts of the body, a few of these things to be stuck on as decoration, but all of them presumably to give some certainty to the existence of a person and a personality, depending on what is chosen to upholster the various appendages and to support the several leanings of self.

But one belt and one set of braces were surely enough to keep one's trousers up, to keep not only one's skirt suspended but also the pouches under the eyes. Ensuring there is no slippage. To keep the hangdog expression from becoming something more substantial lower down. A look or image of the schoolboy where there now stands a man. And this is essentially a story about a man, not a woman. Who, you say, a human or a whoman? There is at the end of the day little difference, because under the clothes we know not what lurks. What or who. Only doctors are normally privy to those areas, doctors or lovers. And for them neither belt nor braces give sufficient bar, neither brassiere nor basque able to stop the reveal of what or who.

The man in this story meanwhile sought for his own life companion. Someone sufficiently similar to him to be human but different enough to be mate. He wore his belt and braces proudly, a Columbo of our times, seeing not only whodunnits but also what-withs and whys. And who was next. Not a man at all, apparently.

A regeneration of life companion to launch a thousand bathing-costumes. One or two piece alike.

Till the monsters came. Each with an interrogatively whovian hook.

And then a belt and a pair of braces were worse than useless. As what they suspended became belief as well as disbelief. The monsters wore something like a belt not around their waist but vaguely draped and drooped round their chest instead.
Playing in their amper-sandbox of crowded words and worlds. Renting a mob for möbius.

The police box was covered in freshly laundered corsets and its light was flashing.